Business Schools and Responsibility for Preventing Financial Crisis Essay

Business Schools and Responsibility for Preventing Financial Crisis - Essay Example are currently facing. But it has been argued by several observers that the business schools have failed to provide preventive measures for current global financial crises. These observers have argued that lack of relevance of these business schools, showing unethical behaviour of these business schools and creating negative impacts on the people and firms or business organisations are creating barriers for providing preventive measures in favour of prevention of current financial crises. Many observers have argued that managers after getting passed out from the best business schools do the same job in banking sectors or in the share markets which can be done by people having no background of studying in business schools (Canals, 2009, pp.42-43). These managers are adding nothing new in these sectors. Business schools bear a certain responsibility for (not preventing) the current financial crisis. Nature of current financial crises: Almost all the economies of the world are facing pro blems in regard to their economic growth process due to the prevalence of financial crises that these economies are facing mainly since 2006-07. ... These are resulting in further decline in global income and hence decline in people’s purchasing power. According to many researchers, including Noble laureate Paul Krugman, these global financial crises are results of poor and ineffective banking and financial system of the developed economies of the world like European economies and mainly American economy. According to Paul Krugman the banking and financial system of these economies has been largely dependent upon the free market forces. These banking and financial systems had no control over the funds or assets which are circulating in the global economy. They became more and more concerned about creating new funds and hence they have started to provide more and more loans to people and business organisations. But when one defaulter defaults to pay his loan, the entire system collapsed due to the fact that the structure of providing loans was dependent on multiple layers. When one lower level of layer collapsed, the entire structure first became unstable and then it collapsed. But the most notable impact has been realised when there occurred a significant reduction in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the major global economies of the world, mainly in the European countries. Between 2009 and 2010 rate of fall of GDP in the countries of the European Union has been estimated as 4%. This high rate of fall of GDP forces many countries of the European Union, such as Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, to take loans from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. These nations are also forced by these international organisations to curb down their public spending on different goods and services, including production and consumption expenditures. In this context these countries cut down

Philosophy of Karl Marx Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Philosophy of Karl Marx - Essay Example Requisite for Marx's conclusions is first an explanation of human nature itself. The nature of a living being is first broken down into two understandings. The first understanding is of the individual being itself, on its own. This focuses on what kind of species the being actually is, whether it is a tree, ant, bird, or a human being, and what physical attributes and needs that being needs to fulfill its own existence. This need to fulfill physical and material needs and advance existence is what Marx ultimately means when he discusses production, whether on the microcosm level of a man or animal preparing food for its survival or on the macrocosm of the political economy of a society. Therefore, the mode of production is what Marx means by what needs are to be taken care of, predicated on conditional material circumstances, and how such needs are achieved through the distribution of labors and what is exchanged for such labor. The other elemental understanding of the nature of a living being is how it advances its existence and species, or essentially how it procreates future generations. In the plant and animal kingdoms, this could merely be the sexual reproduction and procreation of offspring, or ants providing a colony for future generations of ants. In the macrocosm, this means the evolution of economic production within a society. The physical needs and attributes are the modes of production for the individual itself, and reproduction is the mode of production in whichever community or society the individual belongs. Man is a social animal in Marxist theory, which is an extension or interpretation of Aristotle's infamous axiom that man is a political animal. Whether man is a "political" or a "social" animals depends on how broadly or narrowly the two terms are interpreted, defined and overlap. But politics is in itself a social function: therefore, man is at least a social being. This part of human nature necessitates further understanding of humanity's existence. To understand man requires understanding of human societies and communities. How a society, or aggregation or community, is maintained and advanced through the production of the individuals that constitute it, and how the individuals are maintained and advanced depend on the general production of the society as a whole. Essentially, the individuals in a society contribute to it through their production or work, while simultaneously the individual's own substance is determined by the conditions of the society as an aggregate whole. The s ocial nature of man is the framework to the construction of a society. Also essential in human nature is its ability to not to be constrained by nature, that is the creation and innovation of technology. Man can thus employ nature and "add stature to themselves" in its mode of production. The advances in technology ultimately influence the course of human history and its mode of social production. Social production is essentially the aggregate total production of the entire society, and how the individuals in that society produce and how society itself influences such individual productions. Prior to civilization and defined civil societies in recorded history, man was primarily a hunter-gatherer society where

In The Crucible childrens lies lead to allegations of witchcraft and the breaking up of a community Essay Example for Free

In The Crucible childrens lies lead to allegations of witchcraft and the breaking up of a community Essay In The Crucible childrens lies lead to allegations of witchcraft and the breaking up of a community. Why do people lie and what can the consequences be? The word lie means a false statement deliberately presented as being true according to the American Heritage Dictionary, and its a very common habit in everyone. When it comes to lying, we can find white and normal lies. White lies are often harmless, whereas normal lies can be dangerous because of the various consequences they might have. In this essay Im going to present two arguments explaining the reasons why lies are used, which are to protect their reputation or get themselves out of a compromising situation, and to have a motive in order to commit an act of vengeance or violence. Then, I will give four examples regarding the book The crucible and modern day events, which I will then compare. One of the main reasons why people make use of lies is because when they are accused of something that can get them into trouble, the best option at that moment seems to be denying their acts. However, lying can have severe consequences depending on how much you twist the truth when doing it, and even if it doesnt make much sense, people are actually aware of what can happen later but since they feel theres no other choice, they lie anyways. A clear example of this can be found in The crucible by Arthur Miller, where a group of girls are caught performing witchcraft, and some dancing naked around a fire. In the time of the book, dancing was strictly forbidden and witchcraft was a matter nobody dared to discuss. Therefore, anyone being related to any of these would be punished. The group of girls had a leader who was Reverend Parris niece, Abigail, and whose cousin, also in the group, was Betty, Parris daughter. They were performing witchcraft in order to get men to fall in love with them, but Abigail threatened the other girls making them lie about their actions so that she wasnt punished. Even though they could have disobeyed her, telling the truth would have also jeopardized them given that they had as well taken part in the event. This big lie led to several false allegations against many innocent people whose families were torn apart because of the whole scandal, and also ruined important peoples reputations in the society. An example of modern day would be the Lewinsky scandal which first broke on January 17, 1998, basically involving the then current president Bill Clinton and one of the White houses employees, Monica Lewinsky. It started as rumors in websites, but people seemed to be very interested since they regarded the nations leader. Clinton denied everything a million times as we can see in the following statement: I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. Im going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false However, after further investigations, evidence such as recorded tapes and a dress of Lewinskys stained with his semen were taken into consideration and it was concluded that President Clinton had indeed, had sexual relations with her. Overwhelmed by accusations and strong proof, Clinton finally admitted on August 17, 1998, to have had an inappropriate physical relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Even though Clintons wife forgave him, many people had a new opinion of their president and lost some respect for him. These two examples show us how far a person would go to protect their reputation or get out of a problem, being totally selfish given that many times lies like these can benefit you while hurting others. We can see this because Abigail didnt care who was punished for something they didnt do as long as she was safe, and President Clinton was maybe trying to protect his family from breaking up but in my opinion, he was just trying to protect his reputation as an important entity. Another reason why people lie is because they sometimes need a motive to hurt someone else, being this for revenge or just pure envy. We often see people committing murders and harming others in any way possible because they seek revenge and/or envy them. Some are so intense about their feelings that they are indifferent to the consequences their acts might lead to and would rather go to jail or even die as long as they have satisfied their sick desires. On the other hand, we have people who do care about what may happen to them when performing inappropriate actions, reason for which they look for any motive possible. However, sometimes there isnt a motive at all, so they have to create one and they lie by starting rumors and giving false statements in order to accomplish what they want. We can see this in The Crucible when Abigail lies about performing witchcraft and makes other people take the blame. When in court, she gave Mary Warren a poppet with a needle in her stomach, and told her to give it to Elizabeth Proctor in order to frame her so that she would be blamed of witchcraft and that way, Abigail could take her place as John Proctors wife. A modern day example is the Big lie Bush invented against Iraq. He claimed Sadam Hussein had in his power weapons of mass destruction and would use them on America. However, this was not true and it was proved after thorough investigations. Bush made these accusations because he wanted to attack Iraq but he didnt have any good reason, so saying they were going against the USA made it almost mandatory to attack them back. These examples show us that when a person wants something, lies can sometimes help get it, like Abigail who tried to make a false accusation against Proctors wife, whose place she wanted to take. The same happened with Bush, who wanted so bad to take revenge on Iraq, he invented a lie about Hussein. This clearly reveals a certain selfishness from both since they have no interest at all about anyone but themselves. In conclusion, we can say lies are all around us at all times and sometimes we need them but it is not right to use them. In the previous examples, this affirmation is confirmed, showing us the consequences lying can lead to.

Ethics Of Human Freedom Philosophy Essay

Ethics Of Human Freedom Philosophy Essay Throughout human history, freedom has been the most important and challenging aspiration to reach. Our forefathers fought for political freedom from the tyranny of occupiers, slaves fought for freedom and equality and women fought for freedom from their stereotypical household duties and their right to vote When asked to define what does freedom mean, people usually have a difficult time coming up with a concrete definition. The common answer of freedom means doing whatever I want, whenever I want generates many conflicting questions. What if ones free actions are harmful to others? Should he then still have the freedom to keep acting that way? Freedom is too abstract of an idea to be defined accurately and precisely. The notion that someone can be absolutely free is absurd. Most of the time, one persons freedom is another persons restriction. In western culture, philosophers have staked out two basic ways of thinking about freedom. The older kind, associated with what is called liberal thinking focuses on the political issues (of which property rights are a subset). In this view, you are free for expressing unpopular opinions, or criticizing government officials, or trying to take part in government yourself, or engaging in commerce, or pretty much doing as you please, so long as you dont hurt anyone. Many influential social thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries thought that political freedom was not enough and therefore created the so called progressive idea of freedom. They advocated freedom from the tyranny of necessity. In this view, a person too hungry to work, or too poor to feed his or her family, is not really free. A rich person, in contrast, seems free to do many things that a poor person is unable to do. Freedom from hunger, freedom from disease, etc. necessitate a positive right to certain important things, such as food, shelter, and health care. Freedom is the absence of restraints according to the most common usage of the word worldwide. It actually encloses the four following types: 1. Physical freedom: the possibility for a person to go where he/she wants and do what he/she wants 2. Spiritual freedom: the privilege of being able to express ones thoughts or to live according to ones outlook 3. Natural freedom: the authority which enables a person to identify and to live with others of his/her people 4. State freedom: the ability of a person to live under a government of his/her choosing. Therefore, its undeniable that these types help clarifying the idea and the concept of freedom. Freedom is a magnificent word; not only because it covers all the abovementioned subdefinitions, but also because it represents the ultimate target of all human actions and sciences. According to Albert Einstein: All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling mans life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. Because of its wide range of notions, freedom, thus, is a relative experience. Few people think of freedom in very similar terms. To some, it is about political rights: the right to assemble, to free speech, to participate in government (vote, run for office), etc. To others, its all about property rights: to do with ones land and possessions. To others, freedom means freedom from hunger, or health fears, or other woes. To a few, freedom means total freedom to do anything in some cases limited only by other peoples freedom and in other cases limited only by the individuals will and ability to exercise power. Lets take for instance the American political life, the relativism is often described in terms of Economic Freedoms (issues like taxation, free trade and free enterprise) and Personal Freedoms (issues like drug legalization, abortion and draft); republicans support economic freedom more than personal freedom while democrats support personal freedom more than economic freedom. Freedom is no laughing matter since it can be really dangerous if not combined with the right kind of knowledge and with consciousness. For most of us, money is a means to freedom; if I have money, I have more freedom to do what I like. But in the pursuit of this freedom, I might forget the basic principles and limits predesigned b my conscious and get distracted by the glittering features of the means itself. At the present time, the struggle for freedom has turned into a sinister and melancholic path. Herein the question concerning the relativity of freedom is no longer questionable. In fact, the international political and social arena can provide us with some of the most suitable and expressive examples. For the Qaeda, freedom from the American imperialism can only be taken by force and by undertaking terrorist attacks against civilians. Unfortunately, the use of the word freedom has been nowadays over abused due to the lack of a deep and thorough comprehension of its true meaning. For instance the only meanings of freedom for teenagers is to go out freely, have a cool life and experience all the things that may seem ambiguous for them (drink alcohol, experience sex, try marijuana, etc) Many people claim to support freedom but the problem is that so few of them understand the true meaning of the word. Freedom is almost like everything else in this world; it is what we make of it. Hereafter, the true meaning of freedom for C. Wright Mills: Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them and then, the opportunity to choose.

compost :: essays research papers

Compost is an easy solution to eliminating the waste that our environment brings, while at the same time, providing many benefits to us, and the environment. By using compost, it improves our plant growth by enriching the soil that it drinks its nutrients from. It helps us avoid buying soil amendments such as peat, bark mulch and bagged manure. Compost also loosens the heavy clay that is in our soil, while improving the capacity to hold water and adding essential nutrients.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Not only benefiting us, our involvement in making compost benefits the environment also. As if we already don’t have enough garbage filling our landfills, we certainly don’t need our yard waste to waste any more space when we can so easily handle it ourselves. Compost helps reduce the volume it could contribute to landfills. Why put it into the earth that way, when we can enrich it by turning our yard waste into a natural fertilizer? It also helps prevents us from purchasing pesticides and chemical fertilizers that could further damage the environment and the animals around us.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Compost is really easy; all that is needed is some fresh yard debris and rain. By yard debris, it includes the following: grass clippings, leaves, flowers, weeds, twigs, sawdust, eggshells and dryer lint. What we DO NOT want to compost is dairy products, meat scraps, animal fats, bones, dog and cat feces and diseased plants or fruits. These materials may attract dogs, rats or other animals. They may also develop an unpleasant odor during decomposition Weed plants heavily laden with seeds might be better left out of the compost pile if the compost is to be returned to the garden. Even though some seeds are killed during composting, there is the chance that some seeds will survive and create an unnecessary weed problem.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are fast and slow methods of composting. The speed that compost forms all depends on the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, surface area of particles, aeration, moisture, and temperature. Controlling these factors along with frequent turning of the compost speeds up the process. The fast composing methods depend on use of turning units. They can create good compost in less than six weeks, depending on how the compost pile is managed. The materials for fast composting should be added in larger quantities than many small amounts. In the slow method, material may be added to the enclosure at any time.

Transition of the Bulgarian Economy: 1990-1997 :: Essays Papers

Transition of the Bulgarian Economy: 1990-1997 The immense political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe have created a variety of unique transition economies. Each country controlling its own development without fully understanding the implications of the monetary and fiscal macroeconomic policies it yields. Bulgaria in particular has had mixed results. A 1992 OECD Economic Assessment of Bulgaria described â€Å"shock therapeitic† reform programs that included the abolition of central planning, the liberalization of most prices, and opening more markets to foreign trade. While the survey concluded that â€Å"much has been achieved in extremely difficult circumstances,† by 1997, economic stability had not been realized. Since 1989, several governments have presided, the banking system has virtually collapsed, GDP has significantly declined along with the lev, inflation is rampant, and economic policies fail to generate confidence. However, Bulgaria’s economic performance is decidedly â€Å"middle of the road† when compared to other transitioning economies. Declines in output and average real income are much greater and unemployment and inflation much higher than the Visegrad group and Baltic Republics though often better than Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Republics. Many of Bulgaria’s current economic problems can be traced to economic conditions at the start of its transition. Heavy reliance on CMEA markets devastated the country , more so than any other country. Compared to GDP, over 60% of its imports and exports were orientated to the CMEA market. COMECON’s collapsed devastated Bulgaria, causing large initial declines in GDP and increases in unemployment. This event necessitated the complete restructuring of the modes of production. The complete upheaval of the Bulgarian economy forced a suspension of payments to foreign debts making it practically impossible to attract foreign/western investment to restructure the economy. Current economic instability is due to the lack of decisive economic policy from the seven successive governments following the fall of Todor Zhivkiv the former Communist Party leader in 1989. While each succeeding government has remained committed to economic transition, their policies have lacked cohesion over important controversies such as privatization, subsidies, co-operation with IFIs, and foreign investment. The result of the different policies have resulted in much change but little progress with measures dealing with â€Å"soft budget† enterprises and banks, privitisation of state assets, and attraction of foreign investment. Ripples from the discontinuity of Bulgarian economic policy are evident in the rapidly accumulating domestic debt, payment arrears, and the continual refinancing of inefficiently run commercial banks.

Consumer Theory and X1

: Hal R. Varian. Intermediate Microeconomics, A Modern Approach. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1 BUDGET CONSTRAINT Consumer theory —- how consumers buy their goods? Economists assume: consumers choose the best bundle of goods they can afford. Two aspects: —-Consumers choose the most preferred goods. —-They are limited by economic condition. The Budget Constraint Consumption bundles: ( , ): a list of numbers of goods and services. X = (x1, x2, †¦, xn,) In the case of two goods: good 1 and good 2. Bundle of goods: X = (x1, x2) Prices of goods: (p1, p2),The amount of money the consumer has to spend: m. The consumer’s affordable consumption bundles, (x1, x2) satisfy p1x1 + p2x2 ? m. —-The budget set of the consumer ( ) . good 2 m/p2 O m/p1 good 1 Two Goods Are Often Enough Composite good —-take x2 as everything else, the dollars spent on other goods. For example, x1: consumption of milk in quarts per month. The budget constraint will take t he form p1x1 + x2 ? m. The case of n goods Budget constraint: p1x1 + p2x2+†¦+ pnxn ? m. Properties of the Budget Set Budget line( ): p1x1 + p2x2 = m. Vertical intercept: m/p2Horizontal intercept: m/p1. Slope: – p1/p2 Economic interpretation of slope: For the bundle (x1, x2): p1x1 + p2x2 = m. After a change in bundle (? x1, ? x2): p1(x1+? x1) + p2(x2+? x2) = m. good 2 x2 ?x2 ?x1 O x1 good 1 Subtracting the first equation from the second gives p1? x1 + p2? x2 = 0. This gives The number of good 2 the consumer must give up when he increases his consumption of good 1 by 1 unit, and keeps the money spent unchanged. Opportunity cost of consuming good 1—- in order to consume more of good 1 you have to give up some consumption of good 2.Budget Line Changes How the budget line changes when prices and incomes change? Change in income Change in m results in a parallel shift of the budget line. Intercepts m/p2 and m/p1 will change. Slope – p1/p2 keeps unchanged. good 2 m/p2 O m/p1 good 1 Changes in prices Increasing p1 will not change the vertical intercept, but p1/p2 will become larger. good 2 m/p2 O m/p1 good 1 What happens to the budget line when we change the prices of good 1 and good 2 at the same time? Proportionally: (tp1)x1 + (tp2)x2 = m.What happens to the budget line when we change the prices of good 1 and good 2 and the consumers’ income at the same time? good 2 m/p2 O m/p1 good 1 Proportionally: (tp1)x1 + (tp2)x2 = tm. Some observations: If one price declines and all others stay the same, the consumer must be at least as well-off. If the consumer’s income increases and all prices remain the same, the consumer must be at least as well-off as at the lower income A perfectly balanced inflation cannot change anybody’s optimal choice. 2 PREFERENCES Consumer Preferences( Consumer ranks consumption bundles by his satisfaction from use of goods, irrelevant to the prices. The case of two goods Given any two consumption bund les, X=(x1, x2) and Y=(y1, y2), the consumer can rank them in one of three possible ways: (x1, x2) is strictly better than (y1, y2); (y1, y2) is strictly better than (x1, x2); (x1, x2) and (y1, y2) are indifferent. Two basic relations: [pic]: strictly preferred( ), (x1, x2) [pic] (y1, y2): the consumer strictly prefers (x1, x2) to (y1, y2). ~ : indifferent ( ) (x1, x2) ~ (y1, y2). he consumer is indifferent between (x1, x2) and (y1, y2). A composite relation: [pic]: weakly preferred ( ) (x1, x2) [pic](y1, y2): the consumer prefers (x1, x2) to (y1, y2) or is indifferent between (x1, x2) and (y1, y2). Assumptions about Preferences Axioms about consumer preference (weakly preference): Complete( ). Given any X-bundle and any Y-bundle, consumer can say that (x1, x2)[pic](y1, y2), or (y1, y2)[pic](x1, x2). Reflexive( ). Consumer should say that any bundle is at least as good as itself: (x1, x2)[pic](x1, x2). Transitive ( ).If a consumer feels that (x1, x2)[pic](y1, y2) and (y1, y2)[pic](z 1, z2) then he feels that (x1, x2)[pic](z1, z2). Indifference Curves Weakly preferred set: all of the consumption bundles that are weakly preferred to (x1, x2). Indifference curves( ): —-The boundary of weakly preferred set; Good 2 x2 O x1 Good 1 Further assumptions Well-behaved preferences( ): Monotonicity ( )—- more is better. If that x1 ( y1, x2 ( y2 and that x1 ( y1 , x2 ( y2 at least one hold, then (x1, x2) [pic] (y1, y2) —-indifference curves have negative slope.A indifference curve is the set of bundles for which the consumer is just indifferent to (x1, x2). Good 2 O Good 1 Convexity ( )—- averages are preferred to extremes. If (x1, x2) and (y1, y2) are indifferent, then the bundle ([pic]x1+[pic]y1, [pic]x2+[pic]y2) is strictly preferred to (x1, x2) and (y1, y2). —-indifference curves are convex. Good 2 O Good 1 Examples of preferences Perfect Substitutes( ) The consumer is willing to substitute one good for the other at a constant rate. Goo d 2 O Good 1Perfect Complements( ) Goods that are always consumed together in fixed proportions. Good 2 O Good 1 Discrete Goods( ) x1 : a discrete good that is only available in integer amounts. Suppose that x2 is money to be spent on other goods. Good 2 O Good 1 The Marginal Rate of Substitution Marginal rate of substitution (MRS, ): slope of an indifference curve. —- measures the rate at which the consumer is just willing to substitute one good for the other. MRS = [pic] Note: MRS is a negative number. Good 2 (x2O (x1 Good 1 The other form of MRS MRS =[pic] Good 2 x2 O x1 Good 1 Behavior of the Marginal Rate of Substitution Describe the indifference curves by the MRS. Perfect substitutes: the marginal rate of substitution is constant. Perfect complements: the MRS is either 0 or infinity, and nothing in between. In general case: Monotonicity: indifference curves must have a negative slope, i. e. negative MRS. Convex: the marginal rate of substitution decreases as we increase x1, —-diminishing MRS. ———————– [pic]